


Escape Velocity

by brinnanza



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Medical Conference Shenanigans, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 07:03:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16571909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnanza/pseuds/brinnanza
Summary: Hawkeye wishes he could blame it on the gin, this desperate need to know what BJ tastes like, but the truth it, he’s wanted BJ for almost exactly as long as he’s known him. If only he didn’tlikeBJ so much. He’d tried so hard not to -- there’s only so much a person can lose before they stop holding onto anything at all, and Hawkeye had bid a cheery farewell to that line a while back. But if Hawkeye’s honest with himself (and he so rarely is), he never stood a chance, not against someone like BJ. He’d been gone since Rudyard Kipling.





	Escape Velocity

**Author's Note:**

> This is ostensibly the medical conference from 4x6 The Bus, but yknow.
> 
> Thanks to floot for looking this over for me! Minor content warnings re: alcohol and infidelity at the bottom if you need them.

As it is ostensibly liberation he’s meant to be enabling in the Far East, Hawkeye decides to do a little liberating of his own. First of a bottle from the open bar (free booze at medical conferences being the real reason Hawkeye became a doctor) and then of BJ, who’s locked in mortal conversation on the other side of the room with the distinctive grey hair and paunch of a general. Judging by the expression on BJ’s face, he’s about as interesting as Frank’s letters home.

If he were less than approximately four sheets to the wind already, Hawkeye might come up with some clever ruse to spring BJ from his dialectical assailant, but as it is, Hawkeye just sidles up next to BJ, flashes his most charming (if slightly pickled) smile, and says, “Excuse me General, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to steal Dr. Hunnicutt.” Then he hooks his arm around BJ’s elbow and tugs him back across the ballroom.

BJ stumbles a little, not prepared for a sudden rescue (oh Beej of little faith). “Thanks,” he says once he gets his feet under him again. “Y’know, we ought to bring that guy back to camp with us -- we could use him as an anesthetic.” 

“It’s that wholesome baby face of yours,” Hawkeye says. He leans over to knock BJ playfully on the chin. “You gotta learn how to do a disaffected scowl. Perfect for repelling military types.”

“Yeah?” BJ nudges Hawkeye with an elbow. “How’s this?” He pulls a face, exaggerated furrowed brows and pouty lips, and Hawkeye laughs.

“Something like that,” he says. “Come on.” He jerks his head toward a set of double doors, and BJ follows him out into the hallway. 

“Hey wait, where are we going?” BJ says. “The booze is back that way.”

“Shows what you know. There’s booze this way too.” Hawkeye leads them to a deserted-looking corridor and then pulls out his purloined bottle. “Lookie what I found.” He wiggles the bottle at BJ.

BJ squints at it. “Is that -- hold it still, Hawk, my head is already swimming -- is that gin?”

“Uh huh!”

“Real gin?”

“Mmhmm!”

“The same real gin they’re serving at the open bar?”

“Yes,” Hawkeye says, “but why settle for one at a time? Not to mention better company -- nobody here but us chickens.”

BJ thinks it over, his exaggerated expression made more so by the several one-at-a-times he’s had already. “By jove, I think you’re on to something!”

Hawkeye tsks at him. “When will you learn to trust me?” He leans back against the wall and then slides to the floor, patting the floor beside him. “Come down to my level.”

“I’d need a shovel for that,” BJ teases, but he sits down beside Hawkeye.

Hawkeye unscrews the top of the gin bottle and takes a swig before handing it over to BJ. It’s several orders of magnitude better than the swill they brew back at camp (which is really only gin in the strictest, most technical sense), but Hawkeye’s taste buds died with his draft notice.

They pass the bottle back and forth, chatting idly about camp gossip, the conference, the exact limits of Radar’s radar with so much brass in one room. The vague, pleasantly buzzed feeling Hawkeye had been working with wends its way toward a more thorough intoxication, blurring the lines of anything outside of BJ’s shoulder, warm against his, and the low, throaty sound of BJ’s voice in his ear.

He turns his head to face BJ, leaning his cheek on the wall, and BJ mirrors his position. His face is so close that their noses are practically touching; BJ’s full lips are just a tilt and a lean from his own. BJ is beautiful like this with his cheeks flushed a delicate pink, unguarded and missing some of the tension that weaves its way into every line on his face and adds a few more besides. 

Hawkeye wishes he could blame it on the gin, this desperate need to know what BJ tastes like, but the truth it, he’s wanted BJ for almost exactly as long as he’s known him. If only he didn’t _like_ BJ so much. He’d tried so hard not to -- there’s only so much a person can lose before they stop holding onto anything at all, and Hawkeye had bid a cheery farewell to that line a while back. But if Hawkeye’s honest with himself (and he so rarely is), he never stood a chance, not against someone like BJ. He’d been gone since Rudyard Kipling.

“Hawk?” BJ says, his voice roughened with liquor, and Hawkeye’s throat is suddenly much, much too dry. He swallows hard and shoves the gin bottle back at BJ. He means to turn away, to put some space between them in the hope that this crackling electricity will dissipate with distance, but he can’t seem to move. BJ’s eyes - a thin ring of blue around blown pupils - hold him in place, drag him farther out to sea like a riptide. The only hope of escape is to swim parallel to the shore, but between the warmth curling in his gut and the gin loosening the reins, Hawkeye simply doesn’t have the energy.

BJ reaches out, curls a hand in Hawkeye’s shirt and pauses like he’s not sure whether to push or pull. Hawkeye’s aching to make the decision for him, to climb into his lap and chase away anything outside of the two of them here, now, but he won’t. There’s too much at stake, and already, Hawkeye needs BJ too much to gamble with his friendship.

There’s a tug on Hawkeye’s shirt, barely there. It’s so light that he might not have noticed if he’d had anything less than his full attention on BJ, and Hawkeye leans in, helpless. BJ closes the gap and kisses him, soft and sweet. Hawkeye’s eyes flutter closed and _god_ , if wondering how BJ tastes was torture, knowing just might kill him.

After a moment, BJ pulls back, and Hawkeye chases his mouth, inexorably drawn toward him. “Wait,” BJ says. “We can’t --”

Hawkeye’s stomach leaps into his throat, burning sharp and acidic, and god, he is such an idiot. BJ’s drunk - they’re both drunk, and even though Hawkeye wants him in a way that he knows is dangerous and too desperate, this is wrong, and he’s taking advantage and -

BJ’s lips on his startle him from his building panic. “Not here,” BJ says, and then he darts forward again to nip at Hawkeye’s bottom lip like he can’t help himself. “I hear this hotel has beds in it.”

The relief that sweeps over Hawkeye has him drunker than the gin for a moment before it’s swiftly replaced by need - need to get his mouth on every inch of BJ’s skin, to lay him out in a proper bed and kiss his way down BJ’s body -

“You have the best ideas,” Hawkeye says, and they scramble to their feet, holding onto each other for balance. (Hawkeye doesn’t think he could let go even if he wanted to, but god, he never wants to, wants to cling to BJ for hours and days and weeks.) 

The hallway is swaying a little bit, but Hawkeye manages to drag them both toward the elevator. The car that arrives is empty, which is fortunate, because the two minutes since he last kissed BJ are an unbearable eternity. The moment the doors slide closed, he’s crowding BJ up against the wall, dropping open-mouthed kisses onto BJ’s neck and shoving his hands up under BJ’s shirt. BJ moans underneath him, and Hawkeye can feel it where they’re pressed together, a soft rumble that he would like to explore in much more depth as soon as humanly possible.

The elevator doors open and they spill out into the empty hall. BJ’s room is closer and no one will really expect Hawkeye to be in his own, so BJ fumbles with his key while Hawkeye mouths at his neck. The door finally swings open, and Hawkeye doesn’t bother with the light, just pushes BJ up against the door as soon as it’s closed and picks up where he left off. BJ’s mouth is warm against his, and he tastes like juniper, like the first day of spring, familiar and unexpected at the same time.

“Hawkeye,” BJ mumbles against Hawkeye’s mouth, and Hawkeye is very interested in knowing what BJ’s trying to say, but he’s also very interested in slipping his tongue into BJ’s mouth. BJ lets out a soft little moan, hips canting forward to press against Hawkeye’s. Hawkeye breaks from BJ’s mouth to nip at the soft, thin skin under his jaw, and BJ says again, “Hawkeye!”

“Mm?” Hawkeye hums, kissing a line down BJ’s neck to his collarbone.

“Bed,” BJ says. He pushes feebly at Hawkeye’s shoulders and moans again as Hawkeye yanks his collar aside to suck a bruise into his skin. “Bed, Hawk, come on, I wanna -”

Right, yes the bed. The actual bed with actual sheets, sturdier than army canvas and big enough to hold them both. Hawkeye fists a hand in BJ’s shirt and stumbles backwards, unwilling to stop touching BJ for even a moment as he feels around in the dark for the bed. He hits it with the backs of his legs, and they go tumbling down. 

BJ lands on top of him and immediately dives in to run his tongue around the shell of his ear, thoroughly distracting Hawkeye from his plans to roll them over and investigate the taste of BJ’s chest, of the hollow of his hips, of the inside of his thighs. 

BJ’s hands slide up under Hawkeye’s shirt, mapping his ribs with gentle, practiced fingertips. Hawkeye arches up against him, pressing them together from hips to shoulders, but it’s not nearly enough. He wants to feel all the hard planes of BJ’s body against him, skin to skin.

He flicks open the buttons on BJ’s shirt, finger nimble from years of practice at both surgery and other people’s buttons, and then pushes BJ’s t-shirt up out of the way. He skims his fingers along BJ’s sides, up his ribs and then down his chest. BJ’s sucking a bruise over Hawkeye’s carotid and _god_ , his mouth is incredible, but Hawkeye needs more. 

“BJ!” he whines, tugging at the shoulders of BJ’s fatigues, and BJ sits up obligingly to strip out of the offending garment and the t-shirt under it. Hawkeye follows suit, and when BJ leans down again, Hawkeye can feel the tickle of BJ’s chest hair against his bare skin. Hawkeye hooks a leg around BJ to tip them over so they’re facing each other, feet tangling together on top of the bed clothes. 

The room is still spinning a bit, but BJ’s mouth is grounding, keeping Hawkeye tethered. He hadn’t meant to need BJ so much, not yet, not like water or air or gin, but he’s woven himself into Hawkeye, already indelible. It can’t lead anywhere but ruin, but right now, Hawkeye just wants, wants to map every inch of BJ’s mouth, his skin, the soft, pleased sighs he exhales when Hawkeye grinds against him. Hawkeye is too far gone by now to care about tomorrow - morning is another country, beyond the sea and unknowable.

Fervent kisses slow to the gentle press of lips, and Hawkeye’s wandering hands settle to drift over BJ’s vertebra, idly numbering them in some distant part of his mind. The long days and the alcohol are starting to catch up with them both, and the last thing Hawkeye knows before he slips into sleep is the quiet sound of BJ’s breaths, deep and regular, and somehow, it feels like home.

\--

Hawkeye wakes to the familiar headache and wet wool sock taste of a hangover, which is fairly typical these days, but he’s warm and surprisingly comfortable, which is not. He’s tangled in the sheets on an actual bed with someone’s arm thrown over his waist. It takes a moment for Hawkeye’s fuzzy, half-awake brain to put all the pieces together enough to realize it’s _BJ_ in his bed. Or maybe he’s in BJ’s bed. Either way, he and BJ are in bed together, and they are half-dressed at _best_. 

Shifting his legs slightly reveals he’s still wearing trousers at least, and nothing feels uncomfortably sticky, so either Hawkeye had been uncommonly generous or they’d both fallen asleep before they could do anything beyond making out. Which is for the best, Hawkeye tells himself. A little drunken kissing can be brushed off, a mistake they can blame on booze. Nothing to write home about.

Guilt rolls over Hawkeye even as the memory of BJ’s mouth on his has heat rushing southward, making him acutely aware of his morning hard-on. Opening his eyes cautiously against the sunlight spilling in around the edges of the curtains, Hawkeye starts to ease himself out from under BJ’s arm. With any luck, BJ won’t even remember last night, and Hawkeye can sneak out before he wakes, no one the wiser.

As is typical of Korea, luck is not with Hawkeye. BJ lets out a whine of protest before tightening his arm. He yanks Hawkeye backwards with more strength than should be possible while asleep and hungover and scoots in until he’s wrapped around Hawkeye, his own morning hard-on pressed against Hawkeye’s backside.

So much for the easy way out.

BJ rocks his hips against Hawkeye’s ass, hot breath against the back of Hawkeye’s neck, and a sharp spike of desire runs up Hawkeye’s spine. BJ is probably dreaming of home, his pretty wife; he probably thinks he’s in bed with her, warm and safe in Mill Valley. Hawkeye should wake him up now, reintroduce reality and put a stop to this. He should absolutely not be grinding back against BJ and shoving his fist in his mouth to stifle any errant noises.

BJ mouths at the thin skin behind Hawkeye’s ear, and a soft, desperate moan leaks out around Hawkeye’s hand. BJ doesn’t stop, just strokes his palm over Hawkeye’s stomach and then dips lower, fingertips inching under the waistband of Hawkeye’s shorts. Hawkeye is burning everywhere they touch, and his hips jerk forward of their own accord, seeking friction. The rustle of fabric against Hawkeye’s cock is maddening, not nearly enough, but whatever domestic little fantasy BJ’s dreaming will shatter the moment he touches hard flesh where he’s expecting slick folds.

Hawkeye’s not so cruel as to remind BJ prematurely he’s half a world away from his wife, so he bites the inside of his cheek hard enough to cut through the haze of lust and hangover so he can wiggle out of BJ’s grasp. The chance of escaping with both his pride and his friendship with BJ intact is rapidly approaching a lost cause, but Hawkeye will gladly sacrifice his pride (what little remains) if necessary.

Carefully, he grasps BJ’s wrist so he can extract his hand from his trousers. BJ doesn’t resist, but he presses close to nip at Hawkeye’s earlobe, and Hawkeye can't quite suppress the moan that escapes him. BJ resettles his hand on Hawkeye’s hip, strokes up over Hawkeye’s ribs, and the remaining vestiges of Hawkeye’s self control slip away like dry sand through his fingers. BJ will probably hate him when he finally wakes up (Hawkeye already hates himself), but god, how is he supposed to say no to this? It’s dangerous - not because of blue discharges and prying eyes, but because Hawkeye is already in far, far too deep, already wants everything BJ will give him and more. He can’t go down that road again, can’t -

“ _Hawkeye_ ,” BJ moans against his ear, and Hawkeye freezes. 

He must have misheard. There’s no way that desperate, needy sound could have been what it sounded like.

He chances a look over his shoulder, and BJ rises up to meet his mouth, bracing himself with a hand on Hawkeye’s hip. He nips at Hawkeye’s bottom lip, and Hawkeye doesn’t bother suppressing the desperate, keening whine that crawls up out of his throat now. BJ tastes like stale gin, the last few droplets at the bottom of a martini glass, and Hawkeye chases it with his tongue, as drunk on BJ as he’s ever been on liquor. He rolls over, lining his body up with BJ’s and BJ tugs him in by his belt loops.

Reality intrudes, and Hawkeye pulls away after a moment. “Wait, wait -” he pants, but it slides into a moan when BJ grinds against him. “Married,” Hawkeye manages to choke out. “You’re married, BJ, what about -”

“What about it?” BJ says, and then he leans in to press a kiss along Hawkeye’s jawline. “Some of the nurses are married.”

“Not the ones I sleep with.” It’s not exactly the truth, but Hawkeye’s never been the cause of anyone’s Dear John letter. BJ means far too much to him for Hawkeye to be the one to put the cracks in his vows. He wants BJ breathlessly, wants nothing more than to climb on top of him and rut away until they both come apart, but he won’t be something BJ regrets.

BJ leans back a little and his eyes go wide and serious. “It bothers you that much?”

Hawkeye shrugs. “I thought it would bother _you_ that much. I mean you never….” And it wasn’t like some of the nurses hadn’t tried, but as far as Hawkeye knows, BJ had turned them all down.

BJ’s face breaks into a wide smile, and he huffs out a laugh, which catches Hawkeye by surprise. “You’re worried about _me_?” He reaches out to cup Hawkeye’s face in his hands. “I adore my wife, Hawkeye, but we have an… understanding.”

“What, it’s not cheating in Korea?”

“It’s not cheating if it’s men.”

Hawkeye’s head jerks up abruptly. “Come again?”

“I’d like to later, yes,” BJ says. “But let’s do the first time first, hmm?” He slides a hand down Hawkeye’s chest and over his stomach, pausing with his fingers dipping into Hawkeye’s trousers. “Peg has the same arrangement with women.”

“Your wife fucks women?” BJ’s assurances that photographs can’t do his wife justice aside, Peg is striking, and the thought of her and another woman (not to mention BJ’s fingertips so close to where Hawkeye wants them) has him squirming a little.

“Sometimes, when she wants to,” BJ says. “And sometimes I fuck men. Right now, for example. I mean if you’re amenable?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Hawkeye gasps. He’s never been so amenable to anything in his life. “God, _yes._ ” He surges upward to press his mouth against BJ’s and then pulls him down on top of him. BJ’s hand gets trapped between them, and he laughs against Hawkeye’s mouth as he tugs it free.

Hawkeye arches up against BJ, pressing them together from hips to shoulders, and a shiver of pleasure runs through him. It’s unimpeded by guilt or longing or a hundred other things there will be time for later when he’s alone in a tiny army cot, listening to BJ dream of home. 

For now, he’ll take what he’s got.

**Author's Note:**

> CW: drunk smooching, but they're sober for the M-rated stuff. Also, because this is me writing, infidelity is broached and feared, but there is no actual infidelity happening here (it is revealed in the fic that BJ has a semi open marriage which allows for same sex encounters for both of them).


End file.
